The present invention relates to holders for holding jars while loosening tight caps therefrom.
Opening a jar with a tight cap is often tedious, especially for persons with limited manual strength, such as persons with arthritis, carpal tunnel syndrome and the like. Therefore, various attempts have been made to provide a retaining holder for a jar during the opening thereof, such as the pad-type jar gripper as described in U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,361 of Bingaman. However, the resilient compressible angular array of upwardly extending fingers of Bingaman""361 cannot be adjusted for jars of varying diameters.
Other jar holders include wedge shaped retaining walls, wherein the cap of the jar is inserted in a wide open portion until the diameter of the cap is gripped by the retaining members, at a point where the opening between the corresponding parts of the retaining walls, such as described in U.S. Pat. Nos. D258,194 of Maloney, D296,293 of Wheeler, D333,958 of wheeler, and D257,318 of zorzi.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 5,097,729 of Brown includes a wedge shaped pair of gapping handles having a gripping band tightenable around cap to be removed. However, these openers grip the cap only, and do not hold the jar to which the cap is attached, which further reveals the need for a jar gripper, as opposed to a cap gripper. The user still has to grip the jar of a generally wider diameter, which is a problem for persons with limited gripping powers.
Other screw cap removers are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,306,470 of Woloszyn, which includes a lockable cam urging jaw members abort a jar cap to be loosened, 4,165,115 of Olsson, D265,647 also of Olssen, 3,950,801 of Morrison, D351,970 of Barrio, 5,617;765 of Bennett, which includes worm gears moving gripping surfaces against a lid 5,365,806 of Panemest, 5,647,251 of Hardman, D303,343 of Nuss, 4,766,781 of Grise, which includes a lid engaging funnel with a gripping insert therein, D249,323 of Hutson and D249,324 also of Hutson. Moreover, U.S. Pat. No. 4,107,741 of Mikituk describes a locking system for tightening a blending jar of a blender in place for performing a blending operation.
It is therefore an object of this invention to provide a jar holder which firmly holds a jar, rather than a cap of a jar, for loosening the cap from the jar.
It is another object of this invention to provide a jar holder which frees the hands of a user during the jar opening task.
It is a further object of this invention to provide an adjustably Sized jar holder that can hold jars of various sizes while dislodging the cap from the jar.
It is also an object of the present invention to improve over the disadvantages of the prior art.
In keeping with these objects and others which may become apparent, the present invention includes a flexible mounted jar holder which operates by resiliently and tightly holding a jar upon a flat base while loosening a cap therefrom.
The jar holder includes a resilient, ribbed gripping first retaining strap which locks the jar in place. Preferably the resilient retaining strip has friction in doing members such as suction cups, on a surface contacting the jar being held. A locking member includes at least one fixed post, such as a pair of upwardly extending fixed posts, and a third rotatable cam post, which includes an ellipsoid cross sectional diameter.
When the retaining strap is wrapped around an outside circumference of the jar, it is then inserted between one of the upwardly extending fixed posts and the rotatable locking cam post. Pulling the distal leading edge of the retaining strap therebetween causes the cam post to be rotated into place, and locks the retaining strap between the fixed post and the cam post.
A preferred embodiment includes a further retaining means which includes at least one further flexible strap, such as a strip, which is urged against a portion of the outer circumference of the jar to be held, at a point opposite to where the first retaining strap is urged against the outer circumference of the jar to be held. This at least one further flexible retaining strap, such as a strip, is stretched linearly between the pair of fixed posts. Preferably the at least one further flexible retaining strap includes a pair of further retaining straps, such as strips, each having respective looped ends insertable over each respective fixed post. The pair of further retaining straps therefore includes a further lower retaining strap below the jar engaging position of the first retaining strap. The further upper retaining strap extends thereabove.
The first retaining strap also includes a looped proximal end portion engagable over one post of the pair of fixed posts.
As noted above, at a distal end of the first retaining strap there is provided the locking end portion, which is lockable between one of the fixed posts and the movable cam post.
At a mid portion of the first retaining strap is preferably provided a wider jar engaging portion, which includes preferably a pair of parallel strips separated by a gap, to adapt to changing diameters of upper and lower portion of the jar to be opened, or to be able to grip both short or tall jars. This main retaining strap is wrapped around the jar and locked in place by the turning of the cam post until tightened by the movement of the retaining strap between the fixed post and the rotatable cam post.